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Some nights you just want to let your hair down and dance. And get really, really fucked up.Fucking people. Ruins every goddamn thing.

Molly Nights by Sarah M. Chen

There’s nothing like that first moment when you enter a
nightclub. The music pulsating and you can’t help but wiggle around and swivel
your hips, arms up in the air and mouth open wide to yell, “Fuck yeah!”

Of course, it’s much better if you’re tripping balls. The
ecstasy coursing through your veins, making you sweat and giggle, staring up at
strobe lights that look like falling stars.

And the way you feel. Like you could dance the entire night,
and the music is the most beautiful music you’ve ever heard. Everything is
beautiful. Your girlfriend, your boyfriend, strangers next to you, and you most
of all. You’re beautiful.

I’m explaining all this to my friend, Celia, while we’re in
line for Club Rubber, but she doesn’t get it. The poor girl has never done
drugs except for the occasional hit off a bong and it wasn’t even good pot so
that doesn’t really count.

“I don’t know, Letty.” Celia scrunches her face up like she
smells something bad. “Ecstasy or molly or whatever you call it freaks me out.”
She runs her hands up and down her scrawny arms and shivers. We’d been standing
in line for at least an hour and barely moved two feet. “What if it’s bad
stuff?”

“Oscar gets good stuff,” I say. “Now’s the perfect time to
pop it because by the time we get inside the club, it’ll hit. You’ll feel good and
you know what?” I pause.

“You’ll forget about Douchebag. Don’t you want to forget
about Douchebag?” I know I want to. To have just one night without Celia crying
or bitching about him. “Trust me. You won’t even know who the hell Milo is
tonight.”

Celia is quiet, undoubtedly thinking about Douchebag. The
guy who cheats on her and beats her up. One night even threatening to shoot her
because she went to a party without him. I finally convinced her to leave him, saying
he’s going to kill her one day, but sadly, I know she’s one of those girls—the
kind who always go back because that’s all they know.

I warned her he was trouble when she met him last year at
The Roadium, the biggest swap meet in the South Bay, where Milo sold TVs. Spanish
is a necessity there if you want to haggle. And Celia’s Spanish sucks so maybe
that’s why she brought home Douchebag that day instead of a 52-inch Sony flat
screen.

“Just one night,” I repeat. “No Milo.”

She clears her
throat. “So where do we get it?”

***

After Celia swears to stay in line, I round the corner of an
empty building across the street from the club, dead quiet except for the
crunch of my stilettos on the gravel. Sad fluorescent lighting barely
illuminates what appears to be a deserted alley. I wonder if I’m in the right
place when suddenly I’m blinded by headlights. One flash followed by two quick
flashes. Oscar’s signal. I hurry towards the low rider parked behind a
dumpster.

When I get to the driver’s side window, he rolls it down and
grins at me like I’m here to give him a blowjob. “Hey, baby.” His cigarette
breath fails to mask the sour beer smell.

I open the rear passenger door but it’s locked. “Open up,
man. It’s freezing out here.” When I hear the kathunk of the doors unlocking, I climb inside, the car’s springs
and shocks creaking and groaning.

Then I notice a big dude sitting shotgun. He has a beanie
pulled down low so I can’t make out any features except a thick neck and
goatee. When he turns around, I suck in my breath. Milo.

“Hola, Leticia.”
He pronounces it the proper Spanish way, hissing the “c” like a snake.

“What the hell is he doing here?” I turn to Oscar who’s tapping
his steering wheel like a drum.

“I’m here to party with mi
novia,” Milo replies. “She called me.”

I snort. “Yeah, right.” But part of me wonders. Did Celia
ask Douchebag to meet us? Maybe that’s why Oscar got here so fast. He already
knew we were at the club. Course I had no idea Oscar and Milo even knew each
other. If I did, then I wouldn’t have texted him for molly.

Then again, maybe I would have.

“Stay here, puta.”
Milo climbs out of the car and slams the door.

I whip around to see his hulking figure lurch down the dark
alley. A sinking sensation hits my gut but I make no move to follow him. I want
the molly.

Oscar makes some kind of noise out of the side of his mouth
and giggles. I meet his gaze in the rearview. His eyes are like two black sockets.
The guy’s already rolling hardcore.

“Did she really call him, Oscar?”

He doesn’t answer and instead reaches over the seat towards
me, his hand closed into a fist. It takes me a second before I realize he’s
trying to give me something.

I open up my hand and he drops two small pills into it. It’s
hard to see in the dim light, but eventually, I make out the powdery white
stuff inside the clear capsules. Molly. Ecstasy in its purest form.

“On the house, baby.”

I know if I take it, it’ll make me laugh and the world shiny.

I pop one capsule and tuck the other in my bra for later. I
lean back in the seat, impatient for it to hit, and realize we’re creeping down
the alley. We turn onto Vermont Avenue, and I think I hear a piercing scream coming
from the direction of the club but can’t be sure.

I’m sick of worrying about Celia. And soon—for just one
night—I won’t have to. That’s all I want. One fucking night.

Sarah M. Chen has worked a variety of jobs, ranging from script reader to private investigator assistant. Her crime fiction short stories have been accepted for publication in All Due Respect, Akashic, Plan B, Shotgun Honey, and the Sisters in Crime/LA anthology, Ladies Night. Her noir novella, Cleaning Up Finn, is slated for publication in 2016 with All Due Respect, proving she can write something over 6,000 words. www.sarahmchen.com

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